Sad tolls in Iraq

I wish to take a moment to acknowledge and express regret for all the innocent people who have died in Iraq because of the tragic U.S. invasion of that country.

Statistics on the number of Iraqi civilians killed since the beginning of the war have been sketchy, but the U.N. has just released an estimate that 34,000 civilians were killed there in 2006.

Nearly 3,000 U.S. soldiers have died in Iraq since the war began.

And all this from an ill-conceived and probably illegal war that our president justified after the horrific attacks on U.S. soil on 9/11, in which about 3,000 people were killed.

No reasonable person can argue these deaths were justified in any way. Yes, Saddam Hussein was a montser, but the war has killed more people than he did through decades in power. Most of the Iraqi casualties have been the result of Iraqis killing each other, but that civil war would not have happened if not for the U.S. invasion.

September 11 was only one of several false arguments for going to war, but it is doubtful that the war would have ever been rubber-stamped by Congress without that tragedy. To avenge 3,000, we have been responsible for the deaths of hundreds of thousands.

We need to reflect on this and remember. There are alternatives to war. While war may sometimes be justified -- I can't argue about invading Afghanistan -- we need to be wary of being too trigger-happy. The fact that the Bush Administration pushed this through with shaky and selective evidence to justify it is unforgivable. I hope we never let it happen again.

My bleeding heart goes out to all the families that have been devastated by the mounting death toll. Let us pray that sanity returns to the world soon.